


Can I Kill It With You?

by manycoloureddays



Series: Ariadne Inc. [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Leverage Fusion, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Organized Crime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 01:03:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12519404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manycoloureddays/pseuds/manycoloureddays
Summary: “You know what?”“What?” he asks, and is amazed he can get even that word out evenly.“Best fake boyfriend ever,” she says.When Wells leaves Ark - and all that the intelligence agency stands for - behind, he is not expecting to find himself with an accidental family of criminals. Nor is he expecting to fall in love with three of them.Or, the one in which Wells is the best (fake) boyfriend ever.





	Can I Kill It With You?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Squeegee888](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squeegee888/gifts).



> this is a long overdue birthday (and graduation) gift for the lovely tavia-blake! i hope you love it.
> 
> endless thanks to pantsaretherealheroes for her patient beta-ing and plot saving suggestions!
> 
> title from Lorde's 400 Lux

Wells stares at his laptop screen. Purchase successful. He checks the receipt for the third time: two plane tickets, destination Boston - where he and Clarke can hole up in his grandparent’s old place until they are ready to leave the country. He still thinks it would make more sense for them to head straight out across international waters, somewhere with no extradition treaty so trumped up charges can’t be laid against them. But Clarke is in the revenge business, and Wells is in the business of making sure she doesn’t get herself shot, or arrested. So it’s Boston for now.

And here is the first step done. A little over a week and they will be walking away from Ark for good.  He is so close to getting out of the family business he can almost taste it.

He knows now that this is the reason people still say, “you’re so like your mother, Wells,” nearly fifteen years after her death. He’s been itching to get out from under Thelonius’ legacy, out of Ark where he has to lie and kill for liars and killers, all while being told he is working towards a greater good. Whatever that means. As though history is a series of progressions moving forwards into a better future; as though people have any right to impose their will on entire countries.

His mother knew this, and she was tried for treason when she leaked information to the press. Jake Griffin knew it, and he died on a mission so routine they don’t even grade the simulations. Wells is ready - so goddamn ready - to get out and breathe that it’s nearly impossible to sit down and make small talk at the dinner table.

There’s a knock at his bedroom door. There are only two people who can get into the building without calling up first, and his dad is out of town tonight. Fortunately. He has barely started to say, “come in,” when Clarke strides in, slamming the door behind her.

She flops face first on his bed and yells into the mattress.

“Hello to you too,” he mutters, shutting the laptop and going to lie down beside her. “What’s happened?” She turns her head to the side, blowing hair out of her mouth so she can talk. The skin around her eyes is rubbed raw.

“Abby wants me go to the Christmas party. What part of ‘you got my dad killed and I never want to speak to you again’ makes her think I want to go to the Christmas party? What part of Wells and I are going away for the holidays makes her think I’ll stay in town long enough for the Christmas party?”

Having known Clarke for twenty four years - since the day she was born to be exact (and there is a photo - one that Wells is taking with him when they leave, tucked inside the copy of Peter Pan that was his mum’s – of tiny newborn Clarke tucked up against a slightly less tiny Wells) Wells knows he has about two more rhetorical questions before Clarke rant-spirals into oblivion. He pokes her until she rolls over. They lie there, shoulder to shoulder. He takes her hand.

“Do you think all intelligence agencies have holiday parties? Do you think MI6 hangs up mistletoe? I wonder if ASIO runs a gift exchange?” She snorts. “They fucking suck Clarke,” he continues, after a minute or so of silence. It startles a laugh out of her, though it still sounds a little wet for his liking. “They just - they fucking suck. This is why we’re leaving.”

“I know.” She takes a deep breath. Then another. “Why can’t we leave before Christmas again?”

Instead of getting dragged into another ‘discussion’, Wells clears his throat.

“What if we go together? Not -” he says loudly, before she gets any ideas about butting in, “just to the same party. Obviously we’re both going to be there. What if instead of me going with my dad, and you going with Abby, we just, go together? Strength in numbers right?”

He can see Clarke running through all the possible pros and cons in her head. It’s like watching one of those scenes from CSI where the data on the screen is reflected in the person’s eyes, except he can literally see the moment she makes up her mind.

“Right,” she says, nodding like she’s convincing herself. “Right. And that way she can’t drag me off to talk to people I’d much rather kill. It’d be rude to take me away from my date, and she won’t deign to be rude in public.”

Wells hates the way his heart beats a little faster when Clarke says date. Like it means something more than what it is, two friends being there for each other.

“It’s a spy movie cliche. We really shouldn’t have been able to graduate without taking a fake dating course.”

Clarke rolls her eyes. “It’s a date.”

“It’s a date,” he echoes, and squeezes her hand. She rolls over to face him, blonde waves falling across her face. Wells loves her like this - has always loved her, and probably always will love her, no matter what, but especially like this. Safe and home, and not quite soft, but still free of the mask Ark has drilled into her. Prickly, but not poisonous. Dangerous, but not in danger. (He really does almost feel clean of this place, of what it’s been doing to them for longer than they can remember).

The party is full of designer clothes and more weapons than Wells can count (Clarke’s cataloguing them though, judging by the intensity of her eyebrows). He spots Abby and his dad before she does, his height giving him an advantage in crowds that he rubs in at every opportunity. They’re tucked away in an alcove in the back wall, heads bent together with Marcus Kane and Lorelei Tsing. Kane’s alright on a good day, and although he’d never say this to Clarke he thinks Abby could be reasoned with, but Lorelei Tsing gives him the heebie jeebies. He overheard her and President Wallace’s wannabe supervillain son talking about the vast possibilities of eugenics once and that was more than enough to secure them both a place on his ‘Okay for Clarke to Kill’ list. It’s nowhere near as long as she wants it to be.

Abby looks up, probably because she is literally trained to notice when someone is staring at her from across the room, and Wells puts his arm around Clarke’s waist, tugging her close. She looks at him, then follows his gaze to the alcove, and stiffens as soon as she sees them. Wells uses his grip on her waist to turn her away. He deliberately slows his breathing for her to match, just as she reaches out to a passing waiter and grabs two glasses of champagne. This is the benefit of training to partner someone from the moment you can walk, you don’t have to think about synchronising, it just happens. Clarke gulps down the champagne in one go. Wells winces. Knowing his dad it’s incredibly expensive, and does not deserve to be thrown back like cheap vodka. Clarke grabs a second glass and downs that in one as well.

“Feeling better,” he asks, eyebrow raised.

“Much.” She starts moving through the crowd and he is helpless to do anything but follow. They stand by the kitchen door - the prime fancy party position - eating hors d’oeuvres, occasionally chatting to some of the people they just graduated with, all of whom are hoping to be recruited straight out of the Academy. Some of them, Wells knows, will try to do good from inside Ark. People like Monroe and Harper, and maybe even Murphy, because he’s always been a bit of a wild card, hard to pin down. It’s the ones like Finn he worries about. Boys who’ve been told all their lives that the world is their playground, who had someone put a gun in their hand and say ‘it’s up to you to save it’.

Plus he’s a slimy bastard who has never let Clarke’s ‘no’ mean fuck off.

“You know you don’t have to stare him down, right?” Clarke nudges him. “Not only do I know several  _ dozen _ ways to kill him, he’s not a big deal. He is the smallest deal.”

“Yeah. He’s still an idiot.” She snorts, undignified in a couture dress. He looks down to see her smiling slightly and can’t help his answering grin.

“Oh sure. He’s definitely still an idiot.”

And because Clarke is finally smiling, and Wells has finally stopped feeling the tension that’s been curling his shoulders inward all evening, this is the moment Abby walks up to them, palms up like she’s already trying to placate her daughter. Wells scans the room and spots his dad and Marcus watching them; his dad’s face blank, but the worry lines on Marcus’ forehead particularly defined.

There are still eight people - two of them waiters carrying full trays - between them and Abby, so Wells leans down and whispers, “want to get out of here?”

Clarke nods.

He takes her hand and they melt through the crowd, and out through the kitchens. If Abby is pissed that she didn’t get to corner them and ask what exactly they were planning to do with the next year if they didn’t want to go straight into espionage as was their legacy and patriotic duty, well, then she and his dad shouldn’t have trained them so well. Evasion was on their exam, and they both passed with flying colours.

When they’ve stopped running, after several blocks and slow strategic changes from formal wear to street clothes, Clarke turns off the footpath and into a 24 hour diner. They order shakes and burgers - because several tiny portions of stuffed peppers, mini quiches, and spring rolls have never filled anyone up, ever -  and sit in a booth tucked behind the counter.

“Hey, Wells?” Clarke’s voice is small. She reaches over and takes his hand again. He can’t believe he let go without noticing. “I should have asked earlier. I keep forgetting… No, it’s more just, hyper focus, I guess? What I mean is,” she takes and deep breath. “I know this is hard for you too. Leaving. Are you doing okay?”

Wells nods. There’s not really much else he can do, under these fluorescent lights, in front of this girl who only lost her dad six months ago, when he knows if he does he’ll end up crying. There are times and places Wells is willing to cry, and the middle of this diner, no matter how out of the way their corner booth is, is not one of them. He swallows, and blinks, and Clarke’s face crumples a little. She squeezes his hand.

“You know what?”

“What?” he asks, and is amazed he can get even that word out evenly.

“Best fake boyfriend ever,” she says. She sniffs like she might be trying to hold back tears too, but she’s smiling her real honest to goodness smile. And Wells is the best fake boyfriend ever, so he smiles back.

***

The rain is falling in sheets, like the sky is on the wrong setting, has forgotten that raindrops fall one by one. Storms like these are made for days spent indoors, by fires or sitting on top of heating vents, woolly socks and steaming mugs of tea. They are not made for leaving the house.

They are definitely not made for outrunning Ark agents after his cover has been blown. Fucking Finn Collins.

He should have known running their first non-Ark op  _ against  _ Ark was a dumb idea. Then again, Clarke’s been his best friend for as long as he can remember, so following her into dumb situations based on dumb impulses is something he should be used to by now.

It wasn’t even really an op. He had only gone back into Alpha, Ark HQ, to make sure neither Abby, nor his father left before Clarke had finished bugging their houses. But then Collins had got in the same lift on his way out and had not caught on that Wells really wasn’t in the mood for conversation. He hadn’t even been trying to fuck it up and he had. Fucking Collins.

So now Wells is running from two agents, potentially for his life, through torrential rain, wishing he’d dressed for the weather.

He tugs his jacket on, even though the rain is thick enough that it won’t be much use. The apartment he and Clarke are sharing isn’t too far away, but his shoes weren’t made for running on wet pavement, and he keeps skidding around corners, more helter skelter than he’d like. This is probably why he doesn’t see the girl curled in on herself tight enough to just avoid the rain that is trying it’s best to get under the bus shelter. He manages to miss her, but trips over the bag at her feet, and hits the deck with a splash.

He groans. This is exactly the opposite of how wet he wants to be right now. The girl chuckles, bright and a little pointed, like sunshine you know can leave you burnt. But she offers Wells a hand up, and he takes it gratefully.

Then she says, “And here I was believing all the talk about you and Griffin being two of the best agents in your year. Maybe Ark caught a break when you went rogue,” and Wells heart drops again, and he feels colder than he did in that puddle.

She reads the panic that he only lets show for a handful of seconds and immediately backs off. Puts her hands up placatingly.

He looks at her properly for the first time - about the same height as Clarke, but slighter, also possibly the most gorgeous person he has ever seen in real life - and he can’t believe he didn’t place her voice. After all, he’s more familiar with her disembodied voice in his ear than he is with, well, her.

“Reyes?”

“Miss me?” She grins, and Wells can’t help smiling back, cold and wet as he is.

There aren’t many faces from Ark that he and Clarke have on their ‘friendly’ list, but Raven Reyes is one of them. She’s a genius with technology, and by all accounts an adrenaline junkie with an authority problem and a love of all things fiery and loud. He doesn’t know how she ended up in an institution that relies on a rigid chain of command, but if there’s anyone on the inside they can trust, it’s her.

He doesn’t get a chance to answer her question before they both stiffen at the sound of running footsteps coming closer.

“I have to get out of here,” he starts, but she cuts him off.

“No way am I letting you go. I haven’t gloated about how easy it was for me to find you yet. Besides, they turn that corner and they’ll spot you no matter how fast you run. There aren’t any streets or alleys near enough.”

Wells swears. He doesn’t think his dad would actually kill him for leaving Ark, but he doesn’t relish the interrogation room, or the lock and key he  _ is _ likely to face.

“I thought you were supposed to be the field agent, not me. God Jaha, have you never seen a spy movie?” She grabs his hand, pulls him close enough she can wrap his arms around her waist, and kisses him.

It isn’t Wells’ first kiss - that was Clarke, when they were 14 - but he’s been busy, with the Academy and then leaving Ark and going underground, and well, he hasn’t kissed anyone in a really long time.

And this is a really good kiss.

Raven has to stretch up a little, despite Wells’ effort to lean down and at an angle to keep his face in shadow. She covers his cheeks with her hands, and tilts his head away from the streetlight. She might not be a field agent, but her instincts are spot on.

The footsteps move right past them.

“Uh,” Wells rubs the back of his neck. He’s not often awkward, but when he is, he really goes all out. “Thanks.”

“Anytime,” Raven smirks. “Now,” she picks up the bag, and hooks her arm through his, dragging him back the way he came. “There’s a shitty all nighter that does amazing coffee around the corner. You’re going to buy me a cup, and I’m going to tell you why you and Griffin need me, which includes my much better plan to get Ark to implode and run itself into the ground.”

“Alright, I’m listening.”

And he does. He listens as she outlines all the ways the Ark system is fucked up (“and I’m not just talking about, you know, socially and politically. All their internal networks are shit. This is why intelligence agencies shouldn’t be run on nepotism. Sometimes your kids are bad at being spies.” She’d looked at Wells properly then, for the first time in twenty minutes. “And sometimes your kids are better at being spies, I suppose.”) He listens as she talks about how much damage she can do, how much damage all three of them can do, with everything in her brain. He listens, and he watches, and he knows he can’t go home without her. He and Clarke make a great team, they always have, but if they really want to take Ark down, or even just establish themselves as an alternative, they’ll need a bigger team and he has no doubt that Raven is one of the missing pieces.

“Besides,” Raven is saying, “I know you’re one of the best trackers to come out of Ark, and you have the highest number of clean, by the book, successful interrogations. I know all of Clarke’s stats too. One of the deadliest assassins, never misses and never gets caught. She’s pragmatic and focused, and you’re compassionate, someone who can do some actual good. I think you need  _ me _ . You need my brain, you need my hands, and you need the information I can get you.”

She’s meeting his eyes, chin stuck out, defiant, but he can see the uncertainty in the movement of her fingers, the way she’s biting the inside of her lip. He thinks they need more than her brains and her hands, he thinks they need this – someone to offset their preconceptions, someone who’ll challenge them. They need her for her Raven-ness.

He smiles, and watches her relax back into bravado.

“I think we need you too.”

***

Raven goes AWOL at the same time a bunch of classified documents leave the building, and even his dad can’t ignore the threat they pose anymore. Ark moves them from minor inconvenience and major disappointment to officially wanted. Clarke and Raven are designated shoot on sight, ask questions never. Wells thinks his dad must still have a fucked up heart working somewhere inside him after he reads his own file: ‘wanted for questioning, bring in alive’.

Raven is delighted that Ark realise she should warrant this much attention, and Wells knew something like this was coming from the beginning, knew they’d have to go underground, leave town and set up somewhere Ark won’t think to look. He was prepared for this eventuality. And even though it’s come sooner than expected, it has come with a Reyes bonus. It pisses Clarke off no end though.

She’s most vocal about how ludicrous it is that people who kickstart coups and assassinate people feel they can label defectors ‘criminal’, but he suspects that what grates the most is that she has been confined to their apartment building for a week. Clarke is like a cat that’s been locked in after being allowed to roam the streets most of its life; she starts scratching at the walls, and all the other things cooped up with her.

She is currently lying on the couch, legs hooked over the back, hair touching the floor, and face looking more and more like a tomato every second she hangs upside down. She’s also unloading and reloading one of her guns obsessively. Every so often she catches his look and pouts. It’s not a very effective pout, delivered as it is, upside-down.

He catches Raven’s eye and grimaces. She’s looking at Clarke with a mixture of understanding and calculation that makes the hairs on the backs of his arms stand to attention. That look will end in shots fired or kitchens blown up if he doesn’t do something soon. But he can’t plan their next move until they’ve finished setting up a new safe house, and new identities. They can only set up their new safe house piece by slow moving piece. And they’ve had to delegate. He hates when he has to admit that Ark is vaguely competent, but they have made this defection more difficult that he would have given them credit for.

“Have you heard back from that hacker friend of yours?” he asks, for want of a better distraction.

“Hmm?” Raven blinks, tearing her eyes away from Clarke. That’s another situation Wells is monitoring. He’s not sure how many more balls he can afford to have in the air. “Oh, yeah. He’s going to bring the stuff I need over tonight. And before you start,” she says, raising her voice a little, “He’s doing it safely. There was something about moving pub night to one in our neighbourhood, and strength of disguises in numbers. I think he’s bringing a friend. Maybe it was his boyfriend.”

That doesn’t sound dodgy at all.

“You don’t have to babysit me, you know.” Clarke’s gun has disappeared from sight, and she has slipped down onto the floor. Now she’s sitting cross-legged, smiling up at him beatifically. That look will go down in some top secret history; a look that makes even the most stable, hardened people go weak at the knees. It’s a look that has made Abigail Griffin cave. Wells usually has about a fifty percent chance of not backing down.

“Yes, he does,” Raven snorts. Wells thanks all the deities he can think of daily for Raven’s presence in their life. “You need constant supervision.” Clarke pouts. “Honestly Griffin, who trained you?”

They devolve into a bickering match, and Wells gets up to make tea. There aren’t many distractions in the apartment, so his tea consumption is at an all time high.

He puts the kettle on, and stretches while he’s waiting. He hadn’t realised quite how tightly coiled his body had been until he feels the wave of sleepy relaxation roll through it. He winces at the crack his neck makes, and the scales of his vertebrae that follow.

The doorbell rings. He tenses back up immediately.

“Who the hell is that?” Raven hisses. “It’s way too early for it to be Monty.” She’s pulled her switchblade out of her boot, has her less favoured knife in her other hand. Clarke’s gun has reappeared, and she’s moved into a crouch, eyes narrowed at the door.

Wells shrugs. “Guess we should find out.” He motions for them to follow him, and they immediately fall in to flank him, one on either side. He looks at the monitor Raven had set up the first night she’d come back with him.

The guy standing in the hall looks, at first glance, to be completely normal. Tall, but probably not Wells’ height, he looks like he just woke up: tousled brown curls untamed, glasses smudged, messenger bag slung across his shoulders so that the opening is easily accessible to people walking behind him. He’s not giving off any of the normal warning signs, in fact he looks like an easy target, but Wells knows better than most just how much looks can be deceiving. The guy scratches his nose, yawns, and scrubs at his face. Wells catches a glimpse of the patches on the elbows of his jacket.

The doorbell rings again.

“Seriously, who  _ is _ this guy?” Raven whispers, and sounds much less like she’s planning to gut him. It’s possible she’s bordering on amused awe.

“You’re hacker doesn’t hang out with grad students masquerading as college professors from last century, does he?” Clarke asks. Raven shrugs, bemused. None of them are used to people who look this…  _ normal. _

Lacking a better plan, Wells jerks his head, and the girls stay just out of sight of the door. They keep all their ‘spies and assassin live here’ paraphernalia out of the entryway so as not to frighten people delivering much needed sustenance, so there’s nothing else for it. He pulls the door open.

“Um, hey,” the guy smiles, and it pulls nervously at the corners. Wells looks down at himself. He doesn’t think he’s wearing anything with blood stains, and he isn’t armed, but he can’t think of another reason for the anxiety. The guy runs his hand through his hair. “Sorry, Miller was super vague, and I’m not sure if that’s because Monty gave him vague instructions or if I was just not properly awake when he left this morning, but they said to meet them here if I was going to be at the pub early, and now I’m not sure if I got the right place because you’re looking at me like you weren’t expecting visitors and I’m just going to - ” He makes a vague gesture behind him, but doesn’t actually leave.

“Oh, right,” Wells says hurriedly. “No problem. Early for pub night. Monty must have forgotten to tell us he’d send you here first.” The guys face clears immediately. Wells is out of practice with normal human nerves, but that must be what it had been. Now he’s left with the ‘to let him in, or not to let him in’ dilemma.

“Yeah, sorry. I can leave, or wait downstairs for Monty?”

“Ah, no. Don’t worry about it, come in, uh – ”

“Bellamy,” he says, offering his hand.

Wells shakes. He hears the girls holstering and hiding their weapons, and hopes Bellamy’s hearing isn’t as good as his. Before he has to lie himself through an introduction, Raven ducks under his arm.

“You got my package, Bellamy? Or is that coming with Monty?”

“Yeah.” He drags his bag around, and rummages through it. Wells ends up with an armful of textbooks, pens, a laptop charger, what looks like two classes worth of essays, and an apple before Bellamy drops a paper bag into Raven’s outstretched hands.

“Thanking you.” She smiles, and whirls away.

“Right,” Bellamy furrows his brow, looking confusedly after Raven. “You’re welcome?”

He hasn’t even made it across the threshold when Clarke, who Wells hadn’t noticed moving at all, darts in from the lounge room. She scoots past Wells, and drags Bellamy inside.

“What the -?” Bellamy seems too flabbergasted to be outraged, but Wells can see that changing in a matter of seconds. He trusts Clarke though, so he shuts the door, locks and bolts it, and they shove a conveniently located sideboard in front of it.

He shoots her a look that he hopes says  _ what the hell is going on, Clarke Griffin? You are going to be the death of me. _ Her look says  _ trust me.  _ Then she has Bellamy up against the wall.

She really is going to be the death of him.

“Sorry, couldn’t be helped. Hi Bellamy, I’m Clarke. Did you not notice the two people trailing you, and the car following them, or are you stupid enough to try to double cross us?”

At double cross, Raven is back in the tiny hall, and Wells can see her hands twitching, wanting to go for her knives.

“What? What are you talking about? What the hell is going on? I swear to god I am never doing a weird favour for anyone, ever again. Not Miller, not Monty, not anyone. Why the hell does she have a knife?”

He is reaching the babbling stage of ‘out of depth in an espionage type situation’, so Wells steps in. He puts his hands in the air, open palmed - the universal sign of ‘hey, calm down, I’m not going to hurt you’ - and pulls a reassuring expression on.

“I promise we’re not going to hurt you.”

Bellamy scoffs, eyes darting between Raven’s knife and the expression on Clarke’s face. Wells has to give him that.

“Okay, I promise  _ I’m _ not going to hurt you. And I promise that if you didn’t know you were followed, they won’t hurt you either.”

“I didn’t know I was followed.” Bellamy’s tone continues to suggest they’re all crazy, and Wells really doesn’t want anyone to prove him right.

“There you go, Clarke. He didn’t know he was followed. Also, and I can’t be sure about this, but I think Monty’s sent us someone clean. Like, squeaky clean. I think he’s normal.”

“Even normal people can tell they’re being followed. How can you not tell when people are following you? They weren’t even being subtle! That SUV screams feds, and the -” Clarke is cut off by a bark of laughter.

“Are you serious? You’re actually serious, aren’t you? Oh my god, I’ve been kidnapped by conspiracy theorists! I am never talking to Miller again. He would fall in love with a criminal, wouldn’t he.” Bellamy keeps going, muttering to himself about stupid friends, and getting home for dinner, and Wells kind of wants to laugh. People say he’s a good person, but that’s only because they usually see him standing next to Clarke.

Instead of laughing, he holds up a hand - just one this time, to halt some of the words that are threatening to pour out of Bellamy’s mouth.

“Why don’t we all move into the lounge room. There are couches. We can have this conversation sitting opposite each other, and not, you know, throwing people up against walls.”

Clarke rolls her eyes, but no one else protests.

They manage to collectively talk Bellamy down; Raven puttering around with her laptops and tablet, and defending her friend Monty’s character. “He isn’t a criminal, he’s a hactivist. Or, well, I suppose the cops would have something to say about the weed, but he’s a good guy. And anyone who says otherwise gets an asskicking.”

In between questions from Bellamy (“renegade spies? Really? How do you even become a spy in the first place, let alone a renegade one?”), and interrogations from Raven (“so, this Miller guy he’s been seeing is serious about him? How serious?”), Clarke and Wells coax answers out of their accidental kidnapee (“no” he absolutely doesn’t work for any shady intelligence agencies, “no” he really doesn’t work for any shady organisation at all, “no, what the fuck, that isn’t a thing that happens in most people’s lives,” when asked if he was a freelancing intelligence gatherer/hitman, and “yes” he really does wear clothes like this all the time, he works at a university, which is a normal job, and maybe something they want to look into).

Wells hasn’t had this much fun with his training in – well, in years. He keeps catching Clarke’s eye and seeing his fascination and excitement reflected back at him. This is why they want to stay family business adjacent; the family business has the potential to be fun.

After what seems like forever stuck in an awkward interaction limbo, but is actually only about forty minutes, Monty and Miller arrive. Monty, a gangly kid who must be at least a couple of years younger than them, beams at all of them before pulling Raven aside to discuss the tech he’s brought, but Miller takes one look at Bellamy’s face and blanches.

“Yeah, you better look worried Nathan Arthur Miller. What the hell have you got me into?”

“I swear you’ve done nothing illegal,” he says quickly.

“I’ve done nothing illegal?  _ I’ve  _ done nothing illegal!? Does that mean you’ve done something illegal? Have you been living a double life? Oh my god, are you a spy too?”

Once Miller has explained a) that he is not a spy, b) not a Bad criminal, and c) that yes, there is such a thing as a Good criminal, they move on from soft interrogation and minor tech smuggling to what Bellamy calls “normal human interaction.” This still includes questions and conversation, but with considerably more alcohol, and the delivery of some fantastic, if questionably garnished, pizza.

Raven asks Bellamy about work, and it’s all the nudge he needs. It’s like a dam breaking, and Bellamy is actually talking instead of rambling anxiously, telling them all about his research, about the classes he’s TAing, and the books he’s reading, all with interjections from Miller.

The six of them manage to polish off all of the pizza, and most of Clarke’s alcohol supply in a couple of hours. Once they’ve all reached the head-snapping stage of the evening – except Monty, who has fallen asleep tucked into Miller’s side (“his hours are very different to our hours. I’m pretty sure he’s been awake for nearly sixty hours”) – Bellamy stretches.

“Not that this hasn’t been - ” his brow furrows, and he is even cuter in his sleepy confusion than he has been all evening. And that’s saying something. Wow, does Wells need to get a grip. Two crushes are more than enough to be getting on with. He’ll just blame this one of sleep and normalcy deprivation. “I don’t know. Fun, enlightening, kind of terrifying…?”

“Yeah, we get that a lot,” Raven smirks.

“Of that I have no doubt,” Miller whispers.

“I better be going,” Bellamy finishes with a halfhearted glare.

“How’re you getting home?” Miller asks, shifting Monty so he’s curled up on the couch instead, and moving to stand closer to Bellamy. “I was going to stay at Monty’s tonight, but if you’re getting the train...”

Wells watches as Miller catches Clarke’s eye and they exchange a silent conversation. Clarke nods, and Miller turns back to shake Monty awake. Wells is not used to Clarke working so well with so many people, and it’s giving him ideas. 

“If I’m getting the train, what?” Bellamy asks, annoyed.

“One of them should go with you,” Miller says. Bellamy looks like he’s trying to wake himself up enough to argue.

“Just in case whoever was following you earlier is waiting to see what you do next,” Wells jumps in.

He’s expecting a little resistance, but Bellamy relaxes. “That’s fair. I kind of want to say something like ‘I can take care of myself,’ but you guys know people who were trained to kill, so I’m just going to graciously accept the protection.” He ignores a snort from Miller. “As long as it’s Wells.”

Wells looks at the girls only to find them grinning at him.

“What?”

“I’m pretty sure you can pass as another postgrad student,” Clarke grins.

“And you two’d make a cute couple,” Raven finishes.

“Okaaaay,” Bellamy says, shooting Raven a look. “I was going more for the former, with a side of you seem least likely to kill me.”

Wells is inclined to agree, but Clarke looks genuinely confused. He hears her whisper to Raven, “why would we kill someone we’ve just offered to protect?” and can’t hold back his smile.

They say goodbye to Miller and Monty on a corner three streets away, and watch their cab drive off. Then Wells walks Bellamy right to his apartment door.

“I’d ask you in for a drink or something, but not only do I not have anything more exciting than tap water to offer you, I also have an early class tomorrow.”

“Right,” Wells says, grateful for the exit line, but still feeling like he needs to do or say something else. “Right. Well, goodnight.”

“Yeah.”

Neither of them make a move: Bellamy swinging the door back and forward absentmindedly, Wells staring back from the hall.

“You should come to games night.” Bellamy looks confused even though the words came out of his mouth.

“What?”

“Games night. Yeah, no you three should come to games night.” He nods, like he’s made a convincing argument. “I’ll text you the details. It’s usually me, Miller, and my sister. Monty’s started coming recently. Sometimes other people rock up. It’s just booze, and board games. You know, normal people stuff. You three should try that. I’ll text you the details.”

And much to his surprise Wells finds himself promising to see Bellamy next week.

***

“Is anyone I know  _ not  _ a criminal!?”

It’s games night, the third one they’ve been to since meeting Bellamy, Miller, and Monty. It is the first time Bellamy’s sister has shown up. It turns out that Bellamy’s sister is also Octavia Blake, former member of the Grounders gang, and currently one of the most highly sort after retrieval specialists in the world. She and Clarke had worked a job together in Rome three years ago. Two years ago, Kane had tried to bring her in for questioning after two Ark agents went down in Prague.

Octavia is giving Raven an update about someone they both know, who is currently in Kabul, and Bellamy’s head is in his hands.

Wells feels for the guy, but this is also one of those times he gets to appreciate the universe’s sense of humour without being the butt of the joke. Octavia pats his head without turning away from Raven, but her smile doesn’t look particularly sympathetic.

“If it makes you feel any better, I don’t think Gina’s a criminal.”

Bellamy lifts his head and glares at Miller. Then he glares at everyone else in the room. Octavia, Clarke, Raven, and Monty grin at him. Miller smirks and offers him a beer.

“Yep. Gina’s clean. At least, she was last time we saw her,” Monty adds. “I wonder if she’d ever consider working on the wrong side of the law. She’s good enough at getting people to talk already.”

“Great, my ex girlfriend and me. The only law abiding citizens I know.”

“That’s not bad going, you know,” Raven says thoughtfully. “I think you’re the only law abiding citizen I know.”

Clarke and Wells nod.

“That is not something to be proud of,” Bellamy says, and Wells wants to believe it was mostly directed at Clarke.

“Okay, so let’s do a headcount.” Octavia points to each of them in turn. “Thief, hacker, spy, assassin, hacker – ”

“I prefer to think of myself as Q who blows shit up,” Raven interrupts.

“Apologies, Q who blows shit up, and then me, retrieval specialist.” She goes silent, looking around at everyone, and Wells is reminded of his almost revelation from just over a month ago.

“Oh shit, no. O, no. That is the look you had before you landed yourself in detention for a week in ninth grade. It’s the look that you had before I had to pick you up from Fox’s  _ police raided sixteenth birthday party _ . It’s the look that’s given me nightmares since you were six.”

Octavia ignores Bellamy’s protests. “Did you guys ever hear about the crew from Portland?”

It rings a bell. It seems to for most of them, but it’s Monty who says, “Alec Hardison’s crew,” almost reverentially.

Hardison. The name does it for Wells. The Portland crew, AKA Leverage Incorporated, AKA Nate Ford’s crew. Now, he’s pretty sure, it’s a crew of three, but they’re still the most competent crew in the country. Possibly the world, because there was that rumour about them being behind the San Lorenzo free elections and the fall of Damien Moreau.

“What about them?” Monty asks, at the same time Raven says, “I like the way you think Little Blake.”

Wells agrees. “I agree. That’s exactly the kind of thing we need to be doing.”

Which is how they decide - with much feet dragging from Bellamy, followed of course by planning, because he is incapable of sitting back and letting them “die, because you will you know, if you do it this way, here just listen” - to bring down Ark with a stolen M.O. and four people they will never see coming.

***

Teaching Bellamy how to be a criminal turns out to be a piece of cake. It does take a couple of months to find his niche - he doesn’t take too well to Clarke dragging him to a shooting range, and Wells is pretty sure he’ll never grow out of the glazed over look he gets when Raven and Monty talk computers at him - but once Miller has given him a set of lockpicks for his birthday he doesn’t go anywhere without them. And he has a preternatural talent for grifting.

“It’s got to be the whole kid from the wrong side of the tracks ends up teaching at an Ivy League thing,” Raven insists, “he’s learned how to perform as like, protection.” But no one ever actually asks. They don’t want to spook him.

It takes a little longer to work out the kinks of teamwork. While it might have seemed like criminals and spies were a logical fit, there’s a different approach to authority and chains of command, which has, at various points, ended with Clarke’s hackles raised, Octavia dropping threats and looking stabby, and on one memorable occasion, Miller skipping town for nearly two weeks. The only reason Wells hadn’t ended up calling in all the favours he had was Monty’s calm. If he didn’t want to maintain plausible deniability he would have asked Monty to let him in on whatever gizmos and software he has tracking all of their whereabouts. He has a feeling it will come in very useful in the future.

But regardless of Monty’s tracking devices there is still the Clarke and Octavia problem.

“Don’t look at me, man,” Bellamy says. He’s massaging his temples after another ‘disagreement’ had ended with a slamming front door. They’ve moved out of their original flat, and the new one is larger. Wells, Clarke, Raven, and Monty all have permanent rooms, and Bellamy and Miller stay after jobs sometimes. Everyone uses it as a home base. Everyone except Octavia. No one but Bellamy knows where she lives. “This is reminding me of her teen years all over again. I’m having flashbacks. It isn’t pretty.”

“There’s got to be something we can do.” Monty jumps over the back of the couch. He looks worried, which isn’t surprising. Of all of them, Monty is probably the most empathetic, and when things like this happen Wells does not envy him. The clashes must bother him something awful.

“I didn’t even know my sister was a criminal. I have no idea how I missed it, she was living in my house the whole time. I blame the college move. Or you,” he says, looking over at Miller. “Can I blame you?” His tone is light, teasing, but Wells is pretty sure the fact that he missed all of this in both Octavia and Miller’s lives is still messing with him.

“You can’t. Sorry.” And Miller actually sounds almost apologetic. “I’m a thief. It’s a completely different set of skills. She would have been a terrible thief. She attracts noise and violence. Noise isn’t good for thieving.”

“Alright, alright. Maybe I can blame Mum. That still doesn’t give us a way to make them get along.”

“Wait a second. Ohhh.” They all turn to look at Monty, who has a faraway look in his eyes. The faraway look is quickly replaced by a wicked gleam. “Get along. That’s... yeah, that’s perfect. Good call, Bellamy.” He jumps up, punches Bellamy’s shoulder, and walking away mutters, “get along. Perfect.”

Bellamy and Wells both look at Miller, who raises an eyebrow.

“What? I can’t read his mind.” When they continue to stare he rolls his eyes, and gets up to follow Monty out of the room. “You know, the whole psychic, silent conversations thing is just you guys, right?”

And Wells thinks it probably doesn’t bode well for him that he doesn’t know whose silent conversations Miller was referring to. 

 

A few days later a package arrives and Monty gets that gleam again. He texts Octavia, and once she and Clarke are both sitting in front of him on the couch he unveils what looks like an enormous jumper. He shakes it out with all the flair of a magician performing his final trick.

“Ta da!”

Bellamy bursts out laughing. The jumper has two head holes, and printed in the centre - in huge, all caps, hot pink lettering - are the words ‘OUR GET ALONG SHIRT’.

“No way,” Clarke and Octavia say at the exact same time, and that is enough for Wells to know that this, unorthodox as it might be, is going to work.

“Yes way,” Monty says, beaming, and it’s not like either of the girls has ever been very good at saying no to him.

They wear it for two hours, and, under threat of continued entrapment, start using their words.

Clarke’s first words are, “this would definitely be better if we were drunk.” Octavia concurs.

 

Which is how they end up in a booth at Mecha, a local dive bar, on a Wednesday night, sloppy drunk. Clarke and Octavia are still wearing the jumper.

***

“I have some information on those cops you’ve been looking into. And I maybe recorded one of their conversations.”

 

When Gina Martin - who is always conveniently behind the bar at Mecha when they show up - passes them a USB with their round of drinks one Thursday night Clarke actually cackles and Raven hands over all the cash she has on her person.

“It’s a tip,” she says, between giggle, when Gina tries to give some of it back. “Honestly, thank you for getting Bellamy to make his constipated face. This is the best night I’ve had in ages.” 

 

That’s probably true, seeing as the last few weeks Raven has spent most nights in the back of her van, squashed in with Monty and all their surveillance equipment. 

Gina just shrugs, like she wasn’t going to put up much of a fight anyway, and tucks the money in her bra.

“I know zero law abiding citizens. How is this my life?” Bellamy groans, but he pockets the USB.

And Wells thinks, looking at Clarke (hair cropped short now, and standing taller for it, like a weight’s been lifted off her shoulders), Raven (arms slung across Clarke’s shoulders, head thrown back in laughter), and Bellamy (trying to hold back a smile, more freckles than normal dotted across his face after the last job he took in Mexico, solid and never, ever wavering),  _ I don’t know, but I’m really fucking glad it is. _

***

It was inevitable that something like this would happen. They’re good, but they’re not so good that no one ever gets hurt. And they’ve started working bigger jobs, with bigger risks. The odds were never in their favour, and they’ve only gotten worse. It was inevitable that something like this would happen, but Wells would give anything for it to have gone down differently.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Clarke says, gently. She’s curled up on the floor, between two of the uncomfortable chairs they’ve co-opted in the waiting room. She’s wearing Raven’s four sizes too big MIT hoodie with the sleeves pulled down over her hands, and her lips are cracked and bleeding from where she keeps biting down. She blinks up at him, exhausted and pale, and he knows she believes what she’s saying. “It wasn’t, Wells.”

“It was my intel that sent her in there.” He knows it, they know it, and if Raven pulls through – please, please, please, let Raven pull through – she’ll know it. 

Bellamy stops his pacing to give Wells a dirty look. “Don’t be a martyr. We all went through it, we all planned it, and not a single one of us pulled the trigger.”

They fall back into heavy, terrible silence.

Monty is chewing the lip of the plastic cup he brought back from the water cooler ten minutes ago. Miller is sitting at his feet, playing with Raven’s switchblade, which disappears up his sleeve whenever hospital staff appear. Octavia is pacing with Bellamy, up and back, up and back, on opposite sides of the corridor. Gina dropped past earlier with a bag of clothes and food, but she has a normal, civilian job, and it is three o’clock in the morning.

Wells breathes in through his nose, holds for five seconds, breathes out. This is all his fault.

A nurse comes in and clears her throat. They all look up, the Blakes stop pacing, and Wells feels like his heart is going to break no matter what she says.

“Your friend is out of surgery...”

 

“Is she going to be okay?” Wells asks, impatiently.

 

“She’s going to live.”

“Oh thank fuck,” Clarke whispers, but it’s a hospital corridor and it carries.

“Quite,” the nurse says, smiling. She explains that the bullet lodged itself in Raven’s spine, and that she’ll never be able to walk without support again, and Wells can only imagine how hard that’s going to be for her, but all he can think is she’s alive, she’s alive, she’s alive.

“Can she have visitors yet?” Bellamy asks. The rest of them sit up a little straighter. “Is she awake?”

“She’ll be waking up any time now, but she’ll be groggy. One visitor at a time, and I reserve the right to kick any and all of you out if I think she needs a more restful environment that you’re providing,” she says, with a look at Miller’s right sleeve that makes Wells think she definitely noticed more than they gave her credit for. 

 

“Thank you so much - uh…”

 

“Maya,” the nurse - Maya - supplies. “And you are very welcome. Who’d like to go in first?”

 

Clarke jumps to her feet. “I’m her next of kin.”

 

“Alright, this way please.”

 

After what seems like hours Clarke finally ducks around the corner again and whispers, “Wells?”

 

He looks around to see if someone else wants to go in first. It is only partly because he’s afraid of what he’ll see. But Miller is asleep at Monty’s feet, and the Blake’s seem to be having a serious discussion involving mostly eyebrows. He stands, stretching out some of the worry and all of cramped waiting room chair, and follows Clarke down the hall. 

 

“She really is groggy,” she whispers again. There’s something about hospital wards that demand the same conversational volume as churches. Maybe it’s the association with death. “But she wanted to see you. Want me to come in too?”

 

Wells shakes his head. He has to face this apology at some point, and it is best if he does it alone. 

 

“Alright. See you soon.”

 

He watches Clarke stalk back towards the waiting room, shakes himself, and opens the door. Raven is lying propped up on some pillows. She’s hooked up to an IV, and a monitor, looking paler than he’s ever seen her. Her eyes, normally sharp, are hazy with whatever painkiller they’ve put her on, but they find him as soon as walks in, and he’s caught. 

 

“Don’t worry,” she says, voice rough. “They’ve got me on the good stuff. There’s no need to look at me like I’m dying. S’not like I’ve been shot or anything.”

 

“Actually,” Wells says, and it comes out almost steady. “Actually, it’s almost exactly like you’ve been shot. Sorry.” And then it’s much easier to say it than he thought it would be. “God Raven, god. I’m so fucking sorry. I’m so so fucking sorry. I don’t know how I missed it. I don’t even really know what I missed. But if you’d. I’m.  _ Raven. _ ” His voice breaks, and those are definitely tears on his cheeks. 

 

“Wells,” Raven’s voice is gentle, even through the rough, drug-sleepy quality. “You need to come closer, I’m not supposed to move.” He walks over to her bed and, when she waves at him impatiently with the hand that doesn’t have a cannula in it, sits down in the chair next to it. Raven reaches over and takes his hand. He can practically feel his bones grinding together in her grip. “Okay. I am only going to say this once. I know you feel responsible for all of us. I know you think you need to stand between us and any threat, whether it’s our own inability to make sound judgement calls or a bullet. But we made a choice. We’re a team. You have to trust that we know the risks and want to do this anyway, okay?” He nods. “Good. Now I’m going to sleep for a bit. Don’t leave.”

 

There was no way he was going to leave, but now this chair is where he lives. He is here until Raven tells him to leave. 

  
  
  


Clarke enjoys the control she has over visitor flow into Raven’s room over the next couple of days. Especially when Finn shows up for the first time since they defected from Ark. 

 

“I overheard Sinclair telling Monroe that he’d heard from you about Raven. I just thought I’d -” he trails off at the look on Clarke’s face. If anyone could weaponise a glare. “I’ll just leave these with you.” He thrusts a bunch of wilting daisies into Clarke’s hand. 

 

She throws them into the rubbish bin as soon as they’re back in Raven’s room, scoffing. “Daisies? Really?” 

 

Octavia and Bellamy both hate hospitals, but in a bizarre reaction to their desire to be there with Raven they have taken to buying the biggest, and most colourful bunches and bouquets they can find. Daisies do rather pale in comparison. 

 

Falling asleep between Bellamy, Clarke, and Wells (who have been staying nights in the hospital, much to Maya’s amusement and the rest of the staff’s annoyance), Raven smirks. 

 

“You do know daisies aren’t an insult, don’t you Griffin?”

 

Wells watches Clarke blush slightly, and gather herself before stepping closer to Raven’s bed. 

 

“Anything less than the best is an insult, Reyes.” She slips her hand into Raven’s, and Raven closes her eyes. 

 

***

 

If Wells had had time to think about what his life would be like after Ark, if he’d had the headspace to consider the possibilities before he’d run, he would not have expected this. Firstly, there’d been no way he could have expected Raven to join them, let alone the others. But there is something about being a spy turned conman - he’d thought life would be more getaway cars and avoiding the police, and less of the comfort and home that he has now, for the first time in his life. 

 

There are still getaway cars, and they do avoid the police, but tonight he is squashed into the corner booth at Mecha, and two drinks further in that he’d planned. Clarke is in his lap, arm hooked around his neck, and giggly with her third pint; Bellamy is on his right, peeling the label off his beer and mocking Miller about something Wells missed, but his leg is pressed up against Wells’ and every so often he nudges him with the toe of his boot. If Wells doesn’t think about it as playing footsie with one of his best friends then it isn’t weird. Raven, whose last mandatory PT is the reason they’re out tonight, is holding court at the bar. She waves her stick around - which she has kitted out with a taser and a blade, and probably things she has not yet disclosed - directing Monty and Maya (Raven and Octavia had adopted her before Raven was discharged from the hospital) back to the table with another round of drinks. 

 

“Gina’s shift’s over in fifteen, so you lot need to budge,” Monty says, poking Miller until he moves. Miller, to his credit, or maybe because that’s who he is as a person, doesn’t say anything. But once he’s moved far enough to satisfy Monty, he pulls him into his lap and steals his drink. 

 

All the shuffling has pressed Bellamy up against Wells’ side, and Clarke has slipped backwards so she’s sitting across both of their laps. 

 

“Family!” Raven calls from the bar, dragging the second syllable out for nearly thirty whole seconds. They all raise their glasses to her. 

 

“I want to live in this moment forever,” Clarke sighs.

 

“I can make that happen,” Monty says.

 

“Really? You can make that happen? What’re are you going to do? Hack the universe?”

 

“Have you met me?”

 

As they devolve into bickering, Wells settles back into the seat. He wouldn’t mind living in this moment forever. 

 

***

 

There’s an incident in Panama, and Clarke comes back more rattled than he’s seen her since Jake died, but he has to be in DC smoothing over the latest criminals-attempt-to-go-semi-legit-but-fuck-up-a-little mishap. He texts her something every couple of hours - photos of dogs he sees, screenshots of the email he got from his dad when Thelonius found out he was in the city, random thought spirals - but he can feel the tug of home stronger each day he stays away. 

 

Just before he’d left Bellamy had caught him hovering in Clarke’s doorway. 

 

“We’ll take care of her, you know.” He’d put a hand of Wells’ shoulder, and Wells had leant back into him a little. 

 

“I know. I just -”

 

“Want to be the one who takes care of all of us all the time?” Bellamy smirked. “You are talking to the guy who gets in trouble for ‘big brothering’ everyone at least twice a week. I get it.”

 

So what he is not expecting on his last morning in DC is a text from Clarke with this photo attached. It’s a selfie, Clarke beaming in one of his old shirts, lying in between a bare-chested Bellamy and a still sleeping Raven. 

 

He barely registers the “missing you xxx.”

 

Wells takes a slow, deep breath. Then another. If this is heartbreak, it isn’t particularly dramatic. If he’s honest with himself - and often that’s the only person he’s honest with - he’s not sure that this isn’t something he saw coming. Or at least, partly saw coming. But that’s okay, because three of his best friends are happy, and that makes him happy. There’s jealousy too, and a small part of him that wonders why all three of them had to fall in together and leave him alone, but he’s going to ignore that. He’s good at compartmentalisation. 

 

He texts back a smiley face and a thumbs up, then opens his laptop and pulls up flights to Rekjavik. He hears it’s nice there this time of year. 

 

***

 

Monty corners him before he has a chance to actually take himself up on that break idea. 

 

“You know I monitor all your internet history right?” 

 

Wells is trained in both espionage and diplomacy. He has amazing control of his body and his face. But that is just such a terrifying concept. He winces. 

 

“Okay, so not all of your internet history. But I do know when you look at airline tickets. We don’t want a repeat of last May.” Last May Octavia had gone AWOL, which was not that worrying in itself, but had led to some worrying Bellamy behaviour. No one wanted a repeat of last May. “I also know when you lot look at bus timetables and train schedules, and I monitor all the ports. There is pretty much nowhere in the world I couldn’t find you.” 

 

He knows this is a very comforting fact most of the time, but not so much when one is considering, not so much running away, as physically avoiding one’s problems. 

 

“You’re a terrifying individual,” Wells says.

 

“And we live with Clarke and Raven.” Monty elbows his way past Wells.

 

He has a bottle of Wells’ favourite scotch with him and Monty doesn’t drink scotch for just anyone, so Wells allows the indignity of getting caught out in favour of getting drunk. He really has been with Clarke way too long if he’s this okay with drinking his problems away. Fortunately he and Monty have the apartment to themselves this afternoon: Raven is visiting Sinclair, Clarke drove out to visit Jake’s grave, and Bellamy and Miller are tying off some loose ends from their last job working against a private quasi-military firm. 

 

“I think I’ve found the major flaw in your relationship dynamic,” Monty says conversationally, as he pours himself two fingers of scotch, and hands Wells the bottle. 

 

“Oh?” Wells doesn’t like where this is going. He considers the second glass that Monty has left on the table, then takes a drink straight from the bottle. 

 

“Yeah. You went and fell in love with all three of them, and I’m not saying that was dumb, but they are also the three people you are most likely to talk about this kind of thing with. You played yourself, buddy.”

 

“Yeah, that was definitely my biggest mistake,” he says sarcastically. “I’m not in love with all three of them. I’m not - I’m not in love with any of them.”

 

“Uh huh.” 

 

Monty waits patiently, long enough for Wells to take a few more drinks from the bottle. Then he cracks.

 

“You’ve been in love with Clarke longer than any of us have known you.” 

 

“I got over it.”

 

Monty groans. “I’m going to need more booze if you’re going to make it this difficult. See if I try to help you with the power of friendship again.”

 

Wells leans over and pours Monty another drink. Monty grins at him. He doesn’t actually want to blow Monty off, but this is not how he pictured spending his afternoon. He thought he’d get a chance to catch up on some reading.  

 

“Look, Monty. I appreciate the gesture -”

 

“Hey, I’m not saying I don’t get it. Talking about feelings sucks at the best of times. But Bellamy has Octavia and Miller to talk to, and Raven has Gina. And I think Clarke would have to kill anybody she confided in, so I thought I’d offer you my services instead. And then when Clarke inevitably breaks out in hives because she is actually allergic to emotions, the two of us can find someone for her to talk to.” He pauses, then amends, “or we can buy her some cream to make the itching stop.”

 

The image of Clarke volunteering to tell someone about her feelings (and, okay, she’s pretty good at talking about most feelings, but romantic type feelings really do make her itchy) is frankly hysterical. 

 

“There’s the laughter I was going for,” Monty grins. He taps his glass against the bottle in Wells’ hand. 

 

Wells wakes with a sore head, dry mouth, and a pain in his back. He’d fallen asleep on Monty’s floor. Thankfully drunk Wells - or, as is more likely, drunk Monty - was prepared for this eventuality. There is an enormous glass of water on his bedside table. Underneath it, ink slightly blurred from water droplets, is a note that reads:  _ emotions are AWESOME when you have a friend.  _ He grins. He can go toe to toe with politicians, CEOs, and literal super spies, and come out on top. He can do this. Definitely. Probably. 

 

***

It doesn’t take long for Wells to lock away any feelings that he may have allowed to grow - to get tangled, when he knew better, when he’d been trained better. There are the small twinges every time he sees the three of them curled up together on the couch, or moving around each other in the kitchen, always within reach of one another. And there is the sharp pain that he is no longer the first person Clarke runs to when the comms go down mid con, no longer the person Raven choses to lean on when she overexerts herself, no longer the one sharing commiserating looks with Bellamy. But it’s okay, because he can school his expression, tamp down hard on that pain, and still be the one they look to for a plan. He can still be there for them. 

 

He’s fine, is what he’s saying. He has this feelings thing under control. If he takes Monty up on his offer to wingman him when he never used to, well that’s nobody's business. 

 

“But you’re okay, right?” Clarke asks. She’s cornered him in their kitchen. Her eyes wide and open, her voice pitched just right; he knows this tactic, he was there when she learned it. “I don’t want you out there today if your head isn’t in the game.” 

 

“I’m fine, Clarke.” He smiles at her. Whatever’s changed, this will always be the same. Wells and Clarke against the world. 

 

“Good, because you’re the most important person in the world, you know?” Her eyes are brighter now, her smile more normal - this is real Clarke, not Clarke trying to con him into talking. 

 

“Oh really? I’m the most important person in the whole world? That seems fake.”

 

She giggles. “No seriously. Not just the most important person to me - although you are - but in the whole world. Fuck all those other people.” She hugs him, bouncing up on the balls of her feet so she can make the distance to his neck. She really is a tiny person. 

 

“Fuck all those other people,” he says softly, and lets himself hold her tight for a few seconds before he pulls back. “But really Clarke, I’m fine. I’m good.”

 

“Alright. Let’s go get us some bad guys then.”

 

He follows her out into the lounge room, and listens while Octavia explains about the Bratva, and how this particular group has recently branched out from smuggling weapons, to smuggling people. And that’s not on in their city.

 

“Which is why I thought we could use some help. Because, you know, none of us speak Russian.” She narrows her eyes at Wells like it’s his fault. “Because  _ some  _ of us decided that German would be a more helpful language to learn.”

 

“How is this my fault? I can speak five languages. Between all of us we can speak twelve different languages. If we’re going to blame someone, I say we blame Bellamy seeing as he only speaks three languages and one of them is Latin.”

 

“Hey!” Bellamy looks up from the books he’s scanning. “I’m learning Spanish. I nearly have four.”

 

“Are you really gonna argue about this like we’re in middle school?” Octavia’s hands on her hips, but she looks almost amused which means she won’t hold this against them. She looks around until they’re all giving her their undivided attention. “Do not embarrass me.” 

 

She ducks out to the front door and comes back with a woman who looks like she could kill all of them without breaking a sweat, and a man who might have come straight from a pirate convention, if such a thing existed. Wells recognises the woman as ex FBI agent, and current gun for hire, Anya Dubois, but he is sure he’s never seen the man before. He cannot get a read on him either. He catches Bellamy scowling, and thinks,  _ well, at least I’m in good company.  _

 

“This is Anya, and, do I really have to call you that?” Octavia looks at the man pleadingly. He smirks and nods. “And  _ Iceman _ \- which is a terrible alias by the way. I want my objections to that on the record. Anya speaks Russian, and I’m sure Wells and Raven have her resume memorised if you want proof of her experience.” 

 

Wells watches Clarke look Anya up and down, impressed. Anya does not return the favour. 

 

“And the Iceman, when he’s pretending to be a normal person, goes by Roan. His family is Russian mob, but he’s one of us.”

 

“When you say one of us,” Miller asks. He’s been looking between Bellamy and Roan since Roan walked in, and Wells sometimes has trouble reading Miller, but his amusement is obvious. “Do you mean a criminal or a good guy?”

 

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Roan turns his smirk on Miller. Monty takes a step closer to him, and Roan’s smile widens.

 

“Roan,” Anya’s voice suggests many possible bloody ends if Roan doesn’t do exactly as she says. “Let’s get on with it.” 

  
  
  


Everything goes smoothly when they get there. It’s a warehouse and some heavily armed mob guys, but Anya does the talking, with Roan dropping in what sound like snarky comments every so often, and Wells as silent backup. 

 

“Alright, we nearly have everything we need. Easy does it, and we’ll have you out in no time,” Raven says in his ear. 

 

Anya and the leader of this particular cell are nodding at each other. The mob guys turn to leave. Wells watches as Anya takes one step back. Two. Three. She’s level with Roan. The warehouse is clear. Anya and Roan turn to face him, and there’s a small smile in the corner of Anya’s face. They spent four days planning this together, and it’s the first time he’s seen her smile. He moves towards them, hand out to shake hers.

 

And then there is a shot. But it isn’t from any of the mob guys, he saw them leave the building. It isn’t from Iceman, who has grabbed Wells’ arm and dragged him backwards and down before the sound even registered. It must have come from above. Sniper. Sniper. They have to get out of the building. 

“WELLS!” he hears Raven screaming. But Raven isn’t in the warehouse. She must be in his ear; his eye in the sky, but he can’t make his mouth say the words that will stop her screaming. He scrunches up his face and tried again. “WELLS! ROAN. SOMEONE BETTER FUCKING UPDATE ME. WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN THERE.”

“Jaha, Jaha, c’mon bud. There we go,” Roan is looking down at him. When had Wells decided to lie down? Roan has an emotion on his face, and that is an even more pressing questions, when had Roan learned to emote? “I’ve got him. He’s conscious, but he’s been hit.”

Hit. That would explain the pain. And his current inability to follow a thought anywhere useful. He tries to say,  _ we need to get out of here.  _ Tries to say,  _ did someone take out the sniper.  _ Tries to say,  _ fuck, this hurts.  _ But none of that comes out. 

 

Then everything goes black, and he has only a moment to think,  _ if the last thing I see is Roan the Iceman’s face I am going to haunt the living shit out of him,  _ before he doesn’t know anything anymore. 

  
  


“I’m not leaving until he wakes up.”

 

“That might be hours. You need to get some fresh air. Have a shower.”

 

“You haven’t left.”

 

“ _ He _ doesn’t have blood on his shirt.”

 

“I’m not leaving him.”

 

Wells drifts out again, to the sounds of familiar voices and the beeping of machinery. 

  
  
  


He is morphine groggy, his limbs heavy with it. There’s a warm weight at his feet, and he can still hear whispered voices.

 

“I’m going to kill Nia Winters.”

 

“You already killed the sniper. We’re not sure it was -”

 

“Who else would have ordered that hit? Roan reckons he’s the intended target, and I have to say I’m inclined to believe him.”

 

“Well, can we not start a war with Nia before we have proof.” 

 

There was grumbling Wells couldn’t make out. Then -

 

“Fine. Get me proof.”

  
  
  


“We have to tell him. When he wakes up, we have to tell him.”

 

“I thought he knew. I thought -” It’s Bellamy’s voice. Whispered and shaky, but it’s Bellamy’s.

 

“That because he hadn’t said anything he was politely turning you down? Yeah, I know the feeling.” Raven. Which meant the third voice -

 

“We all do,” that was Clarke. 

 

Both his hands were being held, and someone (Bellamy, he’d guess, from the size of the hand, but he’s still a bit loopy from the painkillers he must be on, so he’s not betting money on it) has a hand resting on his leg. 

 

With great effort Wells drags himself towards consciousness, blinking his eyes clear of the fuzz.

 

“Tell me what?” The words tear at his dry as bones throat. All three of them whip around; Bellamy has deep circles under his eyes, Clarke’s are bloodshot, and Raven looks like she chewed through her lip. All of them exhausted, but there are signs of relief on all their faces. They all speak at once:

 

“ _ Wells. _ ”

 

“What do you need?”

 

“I’m going to get Maya.” Bellamy takes a moment longer to look at Wells, smiles, and then leaves.

 

“Water, please.” 

 

Clarke scrambles out of the chair beside his bed, grabbing the pitcher on the tray and heading into what he assumes is the bathroom. Raven squeezes his hand. 

 

“Welcome back to the land of the living.” He watches her swallow and blink back tears. “You gave us a scare.”

 

“Sorry about that.”

 

“Is he apologising? Why are you always apologising? Getting shot by a sniper no one expected is not your fault.” Clarke holds the plastic cup to his mouth. He thinks he could probably stand to hold a cup, but he lets her take care of him anyway. 

 

Bellamy comes back in then, Maya right behind him. She hurries Clarke out of the way and starts fiddling with the monitor beside Wells’ bed. 

 

“I’m just going to do your blood pressure, okay.” 

 

And then amidst the pokes and prods and medical jargon, Clarke leaving briefly to have a shower and change, and Bellamy and Raven taking him through what happened after he was shot, Wells forgets to ask the question again. 

 

In fact it isn’t until he’s sitting on the couch his first night home, having just said goodnight to Miller and Monty, that he remembers the conversation he’d overheard at all. One or two of them have been with him every second since he woke up - since he was shot, if what Maya said about limpets was true. They’ve slept in his hospital room, and tonight they’ve insisted he sleeps in their bed, because it’s the only one big enough for four. If he didn’t know better he’d say they were taking care of him the same way they take care of each other. But that doesn’t make any sense. 

 

Bellamy holds out a hand, and helps Wells off the couch. He doesn’t let go either, just tucks his arm around Wells’ waist to support him up the stairs. Clarke and Raven follow them up, chatting about the movie they’d watched earlier. 

 

Once they’re settled in - Wells propped up against the headboard, Raven and Bellamy on his right, Clarke on his left - he gathers up all the courage he has, because he’s only going to do this once, and asks again. 

 

“When I woke up, you were talking about telling me something.” All three of them freeze. Clarke’s hand tenses on his chest, and Bellamy and Raven share a look. “Something you thought I already knew. What - what were you talking about?”

 

They shift around until they’re all looking at him, a little apprehensive. Raven puts her hand on top of Clarke’s, right over his heart. She smiles. 

 

“For someone incredibly smart, you are so incredibly obtuse about this.” He frowns at her.  _ Obtuse about what? _ “About us.”

 

“What do you - ?”

 

“We love you Wells.”

 

She doesn’t look away, just smiles at him, sad and steady and warm. He looks from her, to Bellamy, to Clarke. None of them look away. 

 

“I love you too.” He manages not to turn it into a question, because it isn’t. He does love them. But he loves them differently than they love him. 

 

“We don’t, you know. We don’t love you differently,” Clarke says, because she’s always had an uncanny ability to read his mind. 

 

“But. All of you? All of us? How would that even work? I know three isn’t unheard of, but four?”

 

“We already live an unconventional life, Wells.” Bellamy chuckles. “I don’t know anyone who lives a less conventional life, and that’s mostly your fault. All three of you.”

 

“Besides, how are we going to know until we try? Shouldn’t we at least put this hypothesis to the test?” 

 

Clarke doesn’t say anything out loud. She smiles, and leans in, and then he’s kissing her for the first time since they were fourteen. He’s smiling too, when she pulls away. Smiling so much his cheeks hurt. 

 

“Yeah, we should definitely test the hypothesis.”

 


End file.
